After leaving the Pill Pavilion, Chu Yunfei did not return to the sect.
Standing on a street in Qingyang City, he opened the Heaven-Severing Slash and quickly scanned the general outline of its cultivation method on the first few pages.
Xiaoxiao Dragon's languid voice rang out.
"Earth Rank Low Grade. Barely worth a look."
"This sword technique follows a path of absolute force and ferocity. Once your sword strikes, it gives your opponent no second chance. Just as well-that Abyss Swallower of yours is an unreasonable brute too."
Chu Yunfei closed the ancient book and looked beyond the city.
Mountains stretched into the distance like an immense primeval beast crouching between heaven and earth.
"You can't master a sword technique by reading it."
"You need something to feed it."
The Cangwu Mountain Range was the ideal place to hone his sword.
It stretched for thousands of li, its outskirts occupied by large numbers of first-tier demonic beasts, with second-tier beasts appearing occasionally.
Azure Mystic Sect disciples often went there to train, exchanging beast cores for spirit stones and contribution points.
Chu Yunfei had only two goals for this trip.
Practice his swordsmanship.
Hunt for beast cores.
An hour later, on the outskirts of the Cangwu Mountain Range.
Towering ancient trees blocked most of the sunlight. A thick layer of rotting leaves carpeted the ground, and the damp air carried a faint trace of blood amid the scent of earth.
Chu Yunfei drew the Abyss-Devouring Sword.
The five-hundred-and-thirty-jin blade settled into his hand, making the ground sink slightly beneath him.
Following the Heaven-Severing Slash's force-circulation route, he channeled spiritual power into his right arm, then slashed.
Hum!
The black blade swept through the air.
An ancient tree as thick as a bowl's mouth broke in half at the waist, but large splinters burst from the cut.
Chu Yunfei glanced at it and shook his head.
"Enough power. Not enough precision."
The Heaven-Severing Slash did not pursue elaborate variations.
Speed, precision, ruthlessness.
With every slash, all his strength had to converge on a single point.
Every fraction that scattered meant a fraction less power.
Chu Yunfei raised his sword again.
His second slash was half a beat faster than his first.
By the third slash, the cut was already much smoother.
Rather than rushing to continue, he closed his eyes and mentally retraced the changes in his muscles, meridians, and spiritual power during those three strikes.
Just then, the bushes beside him suddenly rustled.
A low beastly growl followed.
An Iron-Tailed Wolf slowly emerged from the shadows, its scarlet eyes fixed on Chu Yunfei.
It was a size larger than an ordinary wild wolf. Fine, densely packed scales covered its gray tail, which scraped over the ground with a sound like metal grinding against metal.
A first-tier demonic beast.
Instead of retreating, Chu Yunfei turned with his sword in hand.
"A whetstone delivered to my door."
As though it understood his contempt, the Iron-Tailed Wolf thrust off with all four limbs, lunging at him in a gray blur.
While still airborne, it swept its iron tail sideways.
The fierce wind snapped branches and leaves all around.
Chu Yunfei watched its trajectory. Only when the iron tail was less than three feet from his face did he step forward.
Abyss Swallower slashed diagonally upward.
There was no dazzling spiritual light.
Only a thin streak of black flashed past.
Splat!
The Iron-Tailed Wolf crossed past Chu Yunfei, then staggered several more steps after landing.
The next instant, its head rolled to the ground.
Blood spurted out, staining a broad patch of rotting leaves red.
Chu Yunfei flicked the blood from his blade and looked down at the cut.
This strike was a little more precise than before.
He dug out the beast core and continued deeper into the mountain range.
For the next two days, Chu Yunfei barely stopped.
Iron-Tailed Wolves, Crimson-Scaled Snakes, Stone-Armored Bears...
First-tier demonic beasts fell beneath the Abyss-Devouring Sword one after another.
At first, he still had to think about the route of his spiritual power when he struck.
After several life-and-death clashes, circulating his force gradually became instinct. The moment an enemy exposed an opening, Abyss Swallower was already slashing out.
At dusk on the first day, his Heaven-Severing Slash reached minor mastery.
Early on the second morning, a Stone-Armored Bear charged out of the forest, its massive paws smashing through trees along its path.
Chu Yunfei did not dodge.
He stepped forward to meet it, slashing the Abyss-Devouring Sword diagonally upward.
A black sword gleam flashed and vanished.
The Stone-Armored Bear still held its charging posture, but its enormous body stopped half a zhang in front of Chu Yunfei.
Thud!
The bear's head hit the ground.
The cut was smooth, without a single unnecessary fracture.
The Abyss-Devouring Sword trembled gently, releasing a low hum.
Chu Yunfei looked down at its edge.
The Heaven-Severing Slash had reached major mastery!
An Azure Mystic Sect legacy disciple who spent years bringing an earth-tier martial technique to minor mastery could already be considered exceptionally gifted.
He had taken only two days.
His cultivation realm could be cultivated anew.
But the discernment he had honed over countless years in his previous life would not simply vanish.
That night, Chu Yunfei found a secluded cave.
After confirming there were no demonic beasts active nearby, he sealed the entrance and took out all sixteen first-tier beast cores he had hunted over the past two days.
The Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate floated deep within his sea of consciousness.
Hum!
Azure flames rose.
The beast cores fell into the cauldron one after another. Their lingering bestial nature and violent impurities swiftly burned away, leaving only the purest essence energy.
The sixteen beast cores kept shrinking.
In the end, they condensed into a drop of golden spirit liquid the size of a fingernail.
The corner of Chu Yunfei's eye twitched at the sight.
Everything about this divine cauldron was good, except its enormous appetite.
Sixteen beast cores, and only this tiny amount remained.
Fortunately, the Origin Spiritual Liquid contained no pill toxins, and its energy was far purer than that of ordinary pills.
The second-grade Qi Condensation Pill he had obtained from the cave abode was still in his storage ring, but Chu Yunfei did not take it out.
The foundation laid by the Boundless Creation Scripture far surpassed others of his realm. Ordinary pills contained too many impurities, making them less suitable than the Origin Spiritual Liquid.
With a thought, Chu Yunfei swallowed the golden spirit liquid.
Boom!
Vast energy erupted instantly.
His robes billowed without wind. His exposed skin rapidly reddened, and veins bulged one after another at his temples.
The Boundless Creation Scripture circulated at full force.
Violent energy surged through his meridians and washed through his entire body, continuously compressing and tempering the blood and vitality that had yet to reach complete perfection at the Body Tempering Ninth Stage.
His bones rattled.
His flesh tightened.
A moment later, all the blood and vitality within Chu Yunfei seemed to merge into a single current, completely filling the final gap in his Body Tempering Realm cultivation.
Body Tempering Ninth Stage, perfected!
The Origin Spiritual Liquid had not yet been exhausted.
Chu Yunfei did not stop.
The Body Tempering Realm only allowed spiritual power to cling briefly to fists, feet, and weapons, while the Qi Condensation Realm allowed it to remain stable outside the body.
Only this step counted as truly crossing the threshold of the martial path.
Condense!
Chu Yunfei shouted inwardly.
The spiritual power scattered throughout his limbs and body flowed back into his dantian at once, spinning faster and faster.
A tearing pain came from his meridians.
There was too much spiritual power, and it was far too condensed. An ordinary cultivator at the Body Tempering Ninth Stage would likely have had their dantian burst long ago.
But Chu Yunfei cultivated the Boundless Creation Scripture.
Too much spiritual power was precisely what he feared least.
Boom!
A muffled rumble came from deep within his dantian.
The rapidly spinning spiritual power abruptly collapsed inward, condensing into his first true Qi vortex.
The instant the vortex formed, the surrounding Spiritual Qi seemed to find an outlet, rushing into Chu Yunfei's body in a frantic scramble.
The cave trembled gently.
Loose stones kept falling from the ceiling.
First Layer of Qi Condensation!
Chu Yunfei opened his eyes, bent a finger, and pointed forward.
A strand of spiritual power shot from his fingertip, leaving a small hole half an inch deep in the stone wall.
Compared with when he had been in the Body Tempering Realm, this strand of spiritual power was not only more condensed but also as effortless to control as his own fingers.
More importantly, his dantian's capacity was at least ten times that of martial artists at the same realm.
And this was only the result of cultivating the Boundless Creation Scripture for a short time.
"Not bad."
For once, Xiaoxiao Dragon did not belittle him.
"But you've only just entered the Qi Condensation Realm. Stop looking like you're invincible under heaven."
Chu Yunfei rose and drew Abyss Swallower.
"Don't worry."
"I'm just planning to find a second-tier demonic beast and see how heavy my sword strike is now."
Xiaoxiao Dragon fell silent for a moment.
"This king takes back what she just said."
"You're not getting full of yourself. You just think you've lived too long."
Chu Yunfei pushed aside the boulder blocking the cave entrance and walked into the mountain forest, facing the morning light.
Most second-tier demonic beasts occupied the outer edge of the Cangwu Mountain Range's middle region.
Even the weakest were equivalent to human Qi Condensation Realm cultivators, and their physical bodies far surpassed martial artists of the same level.
Chu Yunfei had only just entered the First Layer of Qi Condensation.
In a head-on clash, he indeed held no advantage.
But fighting head-on did not mean throwing his life away.
A true life-and-death battle had never depended solely on cultivation realms.
The deeper he went, the denser the forest became.
Branches and leaves shattered the sunlight into fragments, while the bloody stench in the air grew heavier.
After walking several li, Chu Yunfei suddenly stopped.
Several enormous claw marks were imprinted in the mud ahead. Each was the size of an adult's palm.
He crouched and brushed his fingers along the edge of a claw mark.
The soil was damp.
The marks had been left no more than half an hour ago.
Chu Yunfei continued along the claw marks.
Half an incense stick later, heavy breathing came from ahead.
He parted the branches and leaves, revealing a natural hollow.
An enormous demonic beast lay at its center.
It was two zhang long, its entire body covered in dark red scales. A curved crimson horn grew from its head, with spiritual patterns faintly flowing across it.
A Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard.
A second-tier demonic beast.
And it had certainly not just advanced. Its presence was at least equivalent to a human at Mid-stage Qi Condensation.
In a head-on fight, even ten ordinary cultivators at the First Layer of Qi Condensation might not be its match.
The Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard slowly raised its head.
Its cold, slit pupils locked onto Chu Yunfei, and a low growl rolled from its throat.
The next instant, all four of its feet stamped hard against the boulder.
Boom!
Its massive body became a dark-red afterimage, lunging straight at Chu Yunfei.
Chu Yunfei shifted his footing and dodged sideways.
The Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard crashed into the ancient tree behind him, shattering its trunk on impact.
Before Chu Yunfei could strike, a dragonlike tail was already sweeping toward him.
Too fast.
Chu Yunfei could only hold his sword across himself to block.
Clang!
A deafening crash exploded through the forest.
His feet slid three zhang backward along the ground, plowing two deep furrows.
The web of his hand split open, and blood ran down the sword hilt.
The blood and Qi within his body churned without cease as well.
"Now this is more like a second-tier demonic beast."
Chu Yunfei shook his numb arm.
The Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard lunged again, its enormous jaws opening as a torrent of crimson flame erupted from deep within its throat.
The raging flames engulfed an area several zhang across.
The surrounding vegetation instantly blackened.
Chu Yunfei did not retreat.
He lowered his body and slid along the ground just as the pillar of fire reached him. Scorching waves of heat skimmed his back, burning broad patches of char across his robes.
But he also used this opening to rush beneath the Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard's belly.
Dark-red armored scales covered almost its entire body.
Only the scales on its belly were sparse, with a narrow gap exposed where they met.
This was its fatal weak point.
Chu Yunfei gripped his sword with both hands.
His newly formed sea of Qi was instantly depleted by more than half as all his spiritual power surged into the Abyss-Devouring Sword.
Dark-gold patterns lit up across the pitch-black blade.
Sensing danger, the Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard twisted frantically, bringing an enormous claw down toward Chu Yunfei's head.
Too late.
"Heaven-Severing Slash!"
Chu Yunfei twisted at the waist and swung.
The five-hundred-and-thirty-jin Abyss Swallower swept upward, trailing an ink-black sword gleam as it sliced precisely into the gap between the armored scales on its belly.
Squelch!
The blade pierced its body.
Scalding demonic blood poured down.
The Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard let out a shrill, agonized roar. Its enormous claw grazed Chu Yunfei's shoulder before slamming into the ground, gouging out a deep crater.
Chu Yunfei clenched his teeth, the muscles in both arms tensing at once.
The blade cut upward all the way along its belly!
Riiip!
The sound of flesh tearing set teeth on edge.
The Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard's enormous body stiffened in place, then crashed heavily to the ground.
Boom!
The ground shook violently, and dust billowed into the sky.
Chu Yunfei rolled clear and dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.
That single strike had almost drained his dantian of spiritual power.
The lizard's claw had also grazed three bloody gashes across his shoulder.
But the Red-Horned Flood Dragon Lizard had already fallen silent.
At the First Layer of Qi Condensation, he had slain a second-tier demonic beast at Mid-stage Qi Condensation!
After taking a moment to recover, Chu Yunfei walked over to the corpse and reached into its split-open belly.
Soon, he extracted a dark-red demonic core the size of his thumb.
The demonic core felt warm in his hand, and the power it contained was at least ten times that of a first-tier demonic core.
Chu Yunfei wiped the blood off it, and a little more of a smile finally appeared on his face.
If refined by the Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate, this demonic core would be enough to advance his cultivation another step.
Since first-tier demonic cores were no longer enough...
Then, starting today, he would hunt only second-tier beasts.